


All Detectives Must Die (or not)

by TaleWeaver



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives/Police, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, weirdest fusion EVER
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 04:19:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15811203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaleWeaver/pseuds/TaleWeaver
Summary: Five famous detectives (and one sidekick) are invited to a bizarre mansion to solve an even stranger mystery.  But Teen Detective Sansa Stark finds herself torn between unravelling the clues and trying to seduce Hard-Boiled Private Eye Jon Snow.For the Jonsa Gift Exchange round 5: Inspired by Film





	1. Coming Soon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OfTheDirewolves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OfTheDirewolves/gifts).



> Jonsa Gift Exchange round 5: Inspired by Film. In this case, ‘Murder By Death’, released 1976 and starring Truman Capote, Peter Sellars, Peter Falk, Maggie Smith, David Niven, and Alec Guinness. It’s a spoof of many different mystery and detective tropes.
> 
> I’m calling it now: I picked the most obscure, most WTF choice of film of anyone in this Exchange! I apologize to my Giftee, allisonswan because I’m fairly sure this is NOT what she had in mind. My brief requested ‘Romantic Comedy’, and I looked and looked, and nothing I found resonated with me. Then I tried straight comedy, thinking I could just write some romance in. And for some reason I picked this one?! I’ve put in some shout-outs, in the spirit of the original movie – hope it works.

I ended up going a little nutty with the graphics - besides the altered poster/s below, there’s character moodboards and a scattered-scenes fic.  Because of the character dynamics, (and I could only fit five people in) I ended up with two posters, one with Septa Mordane and one with Bronn.

 

 


	2. Opening Credits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moodboards for our detectives (and sidekick) plus examples of the archetypes they're meant to embody.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, the inspiration is 1976′s Murder By Death. The main characters are spoofs of Charlie Chan, Hercule Poirot, Nick and Nora Charles, Miss Marple and Sam Spade. I ended up swapping out a couple of the archetypes - after all, Peter Sellars as the Charlie Chan expy was actually a Take That! about Chan never being played by an aisan actor in Western Cinema (which is a freaking disgrace, frankly). However, if I tried something similar on tumblr… well, let’s just say I’m in no mood to go troll baiting. *shrug*
> 
> As I said previously, I went a little nutty with my graphics programs! Here’s title card for each detective archetype, with a couple of other examples apiece. Most of the archetype descriptions come straight from TVtropes.

This was the first one I did, and some of the oldest examples - so in case no-one recognises this, the upper right pic is of James Garner as Phillip Marlowe in the movie _Marlowe_ , and the bottom right is Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade in  _The Maltese Falcon._

__

 

 I managed to find or make labels for these examples!  If you haven’t watched  _Veronica Mars_ , you should!  Especially since they’ve just announced that Hulu is in talks for a limited series revival. 

 

This was one of my iffier choices. I originally wanted Old Nan, but couldn’t find any good photos. Take a good look - that IS Susan Brown, who played Septa Mordane. I picked Joan Hickson as Miss Marple over Geraldine McEwan or Julia McKenzie because frankly, I have **Issues** with the most recent _Marple_ tv show.

 

 

I know a Maester’s not exactly priestly, but… Well, who else could I pick for this? The High Sparrow!?? I even managed to work in a bit of a twist - you’ll see in the fic.

 

 

Tyrion and Bronn are based more on Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin in this (the bottom left pic is Tim Hutton and Maury Chaykin from _The Nero Wolfe Mysteries_ tv show), rather than Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings (bottom middle). _Poirot_ is, of course, played by David Suchet from the epic TV series.

 


	3. The Main Attraction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the Jonsa Gift Exchange round 5: Inspired by Film. Finally, the fic portion of the program!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to add to the confusion: For Doylist reasons (the archetypes I'm using), I needed Sam to have some kind of religious occupation. Let's just say that the Watsonian reason is that the Faith of the Seven took some major hits over the shit that went down with the High Sparrow, Faith Militant and the Sept of Baelor blowing up, not to mention the War for Dawn... so in order to survive, the Faith did a sort of semi-merger with the Maesters. So now a Maester takes minor religious orders as part of their office, and there are no Septons, only Septa's.
> 
> Any anachronisms are meant to evoke the detective archetypes, or put in because they're supposed to be funny. I’ve put in some shout-outs, in the spirit of the original movie – hope it works. I'm not going to re-write the whole movie, so the fic portion of this has selected scenes only.

On the edge of a cliff in the Stormlands, stands a dark mansion of elaborate architecture and ominous demeanour.

On a dark night, in the middle of a storm (because it's not called the Stormlands for nothing), the five most famous detectives in Westeros arrive at this house.

Sansa Stark, the Teenage Detective (with her ever-present camera).

Jon Snow, the Hard-Boiled Private Eye (with his ever-present trenchcoat).

Maester Samwell, the Priestly Sleuth (with his ever-present symbol of his office, the chain).

Mordane Septa, the Octegenarian Investigator (with her ever-present knitting).

And Lord Tyrion Lannister, the Great Detective who usually refuses to leave his luxury flat with it's gourmet food and excellent wine (and the exquisite escorts who always make house calls).  At least, not without being accompanied by Bronn Blackwater, his ever-present and faithful (as long as his wages are paid) chauffeur, bodyguard and general leg-man.

They've been invited for the weekend by a mysterious millionaire, known only as 'Varys'.

Varys is obsessed with puzzles, and illusions.  He wants to create a mystery that none of these famous detectives can solve, and is willing to put up one million dragons in cash to prove it.

So he's invited them all to his mansion 'for dinner and a murder'.

  ***

At the stroke of eight, all six guests assembled outside the dining room, dressed for dinner, as instructed by the doddering butler, Pycelle.  Filing in, the guests took the places indicated by their name cards, and a Pouty French Maid wheeled in a silver trolley, and promptly ladelled out soup.

Sansa and Miss Septa had met several years previously, when their paths had crossed on separate cases, and so quietly started a conversation to break the silence.

"If you don't mind," Maester Samwell, "There's something I've wondered, Miss Septa.  I know you mostly work in the Crownlands and I'm in the Reach, but I keep wondering why we've never crossed paths as clergy."

Mordane took a sip of her wine.  "Oh, I'm not clergy, dear boy, though you're not the first to think so."

“But – you’re not a Septa?” Samwell asked.

“No, dear, in my case it’s just a name.  Haven’t you ever come across someone with the surname Maesterson?”

“Um, yes.  I think it was one of my ancestors who came up with it, actually.  He was a Maester in training, around the time of the War for Dawn.  He fell in love with a woman who had a bastard child – terrible story, apparently she came from the Arctic North, what they used to call Beyond the Wall – not that that’s the terrible thing, of course.  She grew up in a very isolated keep, with this absolute monster for a father, who’d leave his sons out to die of exposure, and use his daughters to, well, make them.  Anyway, the father came to a highly deserved sticky end, and my ancestor, who’d fallen in love with one of the daughters, brought her and her newborn son back across the Wall.  He couldn’t marry her at the time, rules of the Order, but when his father found out he wasn’t the baby’s father by blood, he denied them the right to use the family name.  That really annoyed my ancestor, so he promptly dubbed the baby Maesterson.  Since he couldn’t give his adopted son the surname he was born with, he gave the baby a surname he’d earned.”

“What a lovely story,” Miss Septa smiled.  "The ending, at least."

“Yeah,” Snow chuckled.  “It’s a bit of a habit in his family.  Every so often a quiet but brilliant one comes along, and they all turn out to be utter shit-stirrers when pushed too far.  Funny thing, they’re nearly always called some variation on Samwell.”

Miss Septa looked at him thoughtfully, then continued, “That’s actually how I got into this detective business, strangely enough.  Of course, people in my village had come to me with this problem or that for years before then, but those were usually little problems that would really only be of interest as studies of human nature.  Though that’s what detective work is really, isn’t it?  Solving problems of human nature.”

Lord Lannister raised his glass to her in salute, and remarked, “Perhaps something of a simplistic explanation, dear lady, but a fundamentally sound one.”

“But my first problem of a criminal nature, as I said, was due to my name.  A man came into the Sept in my village, you see, and kept asking for ‘Septa’.  Since our village only had a vicar, they thought he must be asking for me.  So I came at once, and while he was talking about Sanctuary I discovered the poor man had been shot.  So after he died it was a matter of finding out why he’d wanted sanctuary and why he was so desperate he came all the way to Saint Myrcella Mead.”

“And?” Sansa asked eagerly.  “Tell us about it.”

“Oh no, it’s not a very thrilling story,” Miss Septa demurred.  “All the shooting happened before I came into it, and there wasn’t any gathering of suspects at the end for a dramatic denouement.”

“So what?” Snow shrugged.  “I try to avoid shooting as much as possible.  Just doesn’t work out that way often.  Personally, I’d love to hear a story where no one had to chase a suspect down a murky alley.”

“Quite right,” Lord Lannister said firmly.  “There is no crime too big or too small for a true detective.  They are all grist to our mills.”

“Please?” Sansa asked, deploying her best puppy-dog eyes.  “If you do, I’ll tell my story about the parrot and the goat over dessert and nightcaps.  It’s just as funny as it sounds.”

 

  ***

Dessert was rather spoiled by the appearance of their host, who appeared in a smoky, choking fog.  After challenging them all with vague insults, Varys laid out why he'd invited them to his mansion: he wanted to prove he was smarter than all of them.  The detective who could solve the mystery he presented them with would win one million dragons, and he showed them the stack of banknotes to prove it.

Then the lights went out, and seconds later they came back up again to reveal the absence of their host... and the appearance of the butler.

As they followed Pycelle's wavering footsteps to the wing where their rooms were located, Sansa made sure she was at the end of the line.  Her first sight of Jon Snow had started a hormonal rush that left her breathless.  Then the tight pants of his dinner suit had revealed a view she wanted more of, especially once he took off his jacket.

Maester Samwell and Jon were lagging behind the other three as they started a heated discussion about Varys' possible next move, and Sansa shamelessly eavesdropped.  After all, she was a recent high school graduate - eavesdropping was an essential survival skill she'd developed long before she'd started crime solving.

Halfway down the hall, Sansa frowned, and tilted her head.  Something about the way Jon and Maester Samwell were arguing… well, obviously they had known each other for a long time, what with that comment about his family – oh, that was it!

They fought like **family**.

Wait… Jon, and Samwell… or Sam and Jonny!

“Ohmigods!” Sansa exclaimed.  “You’re the **Tarly Boys**!”

Jon and Samwell both froze and turned to face her with matching expressions of dread.

“You’re Jonny and Sam Tarly - the first truly respected Teen Detectives in Westeros! I don’t even want to think about how hard it would have been for me to work without your example.”

“That was just some shit a stupid reporter made up after our first case,” Jon told her disgruntledly.  “Apparently, us being foster brothers wasn’t ‘catchy enough’ or some shit.”

Maester Samwell sighed.  “It drove my father crazy, everyone thinking that Jon was a Tarly.  Almost as crazy as everyone saying what a credit I was to my family name, when I was such an utter failure at everything he considered important.”

“Your father’s an idiot, Sam,” Jon told him roughly.  “Always has been.  Damn good thing for the Tarlys that all three of you take after your mother.”

Sansa had the feeling she was listening to a very old, much-repeated exchange, and she was starting to feel a little left out.  “So what happened?  How did you go from the Tarly Boys to this?”

“Funny thing about being a Teen Detective,” Jon answered wryly.  “Sooner or later, you’re not a teen anymore.  In our case, college happened.  Sam got accepted at the Citadel, and I wasn’t going to let him blow that kind of future to play cops and robbers with me.”

“When I went to the Citadel, I vowed to leave mysteries behind.  Funny thing, though,” Maester Samwell added, “As soon as I forged my chain, mysteries started to find me, instead.  I couldn’t just keep quiet when people in my community were being hurt and I knew I could do something, so… well, I became the sleuthing Maester Samwell.”

Jon took up the story.  “So with Sam safely at the Citadel – or so we all thought - I went to the police academy, but at my first posting… well, long story short, I got assigned to a squad where just about everyone was on the take.  When they worked out I wasn’t going to play along, they decided to get rid of me permanently and make it look like a gang killing.  Turns out it takes more than a shish-kebabbing to keep me down.”

“Don’t you **dare** make light of it, Jon!”  Sam turned to Sansa, breathing heavily.  “He was stabbed four times.  He coded on the table, and I had no idea until he was in recovery.”

Sansa resisted the urge to give him a comforting hug.  Or perhaps she was the one who wanted comforting – Sansa’s imagination was one of her most powerful investigative tools, and she could quite easily see one of her own siblings in similar circumstances.

 

    ***

“Who do you think is the murderer?” Bronn asked curiously, as he and Lannister walked down the hall to their suite.

“I need to sleep on it.  Undoubtedly I’ll know in the morning when I wake up,” Tyrion said in his most Lordly manner.  
   
“But what if you don't wake up?”

Tyrion sighed in exasperation.  “Then **you** did it, obviously!”

  
  ***

Sansa paused outside her door, and nodded in reply to Maester Samwell's cheery 'good night'.  She waited until Jon opened the door to his room, between hers and Samwell's, then followed him inside.

"Sansa?  Is something wrong?" Jon asked, frowning.

Sansa played nervously with the end of her intricate braid.  She'd never seduced anyone before - how did you go about it?  Despite dating Harry for three years, actually making advances wasn't something she had much experience in; with Harry it had been more about deflecting his.

"Um... I'm not really tired.  I was wondering if you'd like to talk some more?"

Gods, could she be any more ridiculous?  For a fleeting moment, Sansa tensed to flee the room and back to her own.  But how often would a chance like this come along?  A man like this, with no one to judge her?

Jon looked at her quizzically.  "It's a little late for this, don't you think?  I'm used to working late hours, but who knows what's in store for us tomorrow?"

Was she actually not being obvious enough?  Sansa felt as if 'I want to go to bed with you' was written in glowing red letters on her forehead.

Sansa licked her lips, then took a deep breath for courage.  She opened her lips to speak, but what came out was, "Do you smell that?"

"Smell what?"

Sansa moved past Jon, adrenaline beginning to pump as she moved deeper into the room.  She sniffed cautiously, then again.

"I can't smell anything," Jon ventured.

Sansa threw him a disapproving look over her shoulder.  "It's probably those cigarettes.  How can a detective willingly dull one of his senses so much?  I'm sure I smell gas - and it's getting stronger."

Jon inhaled sharply.  "I'm starting to smell it, too.  Any ideas where it's coming from?"

"Take a look around this room; every piece of furniture is heavy, and it's decorated within an inch of it's life.  We'd need a hour to search properly for a dispersal point."

"Right," Jon nodded, then strode to the window.  He tried to open one, then the other.  "The windows are jammed, not locked.  I'm guessing that's not a coincidence.  Right, then."

Picking up a marble statuette from the built-in bookshelf, he smashed it into the window glass, which obligingly shattered.  Knocking out the large jagged edges, he asked, "That make a difference?"

Sansa moved to the broken window to take a deep lungful of cold, clean, night air, then moved back to the middle of the room and took another whiff.  "It's clearing, but not much.  Better take out the second window as well."

Once the other window was taken out, Sansa came back to the window and leaned on the wall, taking as deep breaths as possible without hyperventilating.

"You okay?" Jon asked worriedly.

Sansa took another breath, then slowly nodded.  "Just a bit light-headed, I think.  How much do you want to bet that all the other rooms have something in store as well?"

Jon went slightly paler.  "Sam."

Running for the door, he darted down to Samwell's room.  Knocking loudly on the door, he called his brother's name.

"Bit busy right now!" came a muffled reply through the door.

"Need some help?" called Jon.

"Best to keep things contained.  I'm fine, I'll see you in the morning."

Turning back to his own room, he saw Sansa coming toward him with a duffle-sized overnight bag in her hand.

"Um, Sansa?"

"I am in no mood to deal with whatever nasty little surprise is waiting in my room.  Hope you don't mind a room-mate."

Jon blinked, and Sansa strode into his room like she had an engraved invitation.  He absent-mindedly followed her in, and asked, "What about the rest of your things?"

Sansa shook her head.  "I re-packed my bag after I changed for dinner.  I always keep my luggage ready to grab and go, ever since the Spider Sapphire case.  My motel caught on fire and I had to jump out the window.  I spent the rest of the night and all the next morning with nothing but my laptop, my purse, my pyjamas and some fuzzy slippers."  Setting her bag on the bed, she asked,  "Do you sleep on the right or left?"

"Uh, nearest the window."

Sansa took something light blue and silky out of her bag, and asked, "Okay if I change in the bathroom?  Just tell me when it's okay for me to come out."

The bathroom door closed behind her with a decisive snap. 

Jon's head was still whirling from Sansa's wake, and he wondered if he'd inhaled more of that gas than he thought.  But it wasn't like he could send a young girl off to a booby-trapped room for the night.  Dazedly, he moved to his suitcase and started digging for the clothes he'd brought in case he could fit in a quick run.  There was no way he was going to sleep in his boxers with a teenage girl around.

And was he imagining things, or had she been making eyes at him earlier?

Jon shook his head, and turned on the bedside lamps, then turned off the main lights.  Quickly changing, he climbed into bed and laid back with his hands laced behind his head.  Looking at the elaborate plaster moulding on the ceiling, he sorted through the night's events in his head.  Maybe he **should** bounce some ideas off Sansa...

"Jon?"

"S'fine, come out whenever," he called back.

He'd noticed how beautiful she was the first time he saw her, of course.  But now Jon found himself swallowing hard when Sansa came into view.  Her  slender arms and long legs displayed by the sky blue camisole and girl's boxers, and that glorious red hair all loose, flowing over her shoulders and down to the middle of her back like some kind of fiery waterfall.

Seven Hells.  The girls in his high school sure hadn't looked like this.

Maybe it would be a better idea to head to snoozeville as soon as possible.

Jon had a lot of experience in dropping off to sleep in awkward places - the front seat of his car, sagging beds in cheap motels, and the expensive leather couch in his office that had been an office-warming gift from Mrs Tarly, Dickon, and Talla, which he'd never had the heart to tell them farted like a whoopee cushion whenever you sat on it.  So he was half asleep when Sansa gently touched his shoulder.

“Jon?”

“What is it, Sansa?” he groaned sleepily.

“Do you always wear T-shirts and track pants to bed?”

“Actually, no.  But I don’t think it’s a good idea to strip down to my boxers when there’s a bloody cold wind whistling through that broken window, not to mention your company.”

“You don’t need to do anything special for me, you know,” Sansa ventured.

Jon chuckled darkly, “Usually when I have company in my bed, not much sleeping is involved.”

Sansa bit her lip nervously, and offered, “Well, that’s fine too.”

Nothing but silence replied.

“Look, granted I’ve only had one real boyfriend before, and it turned out whenever I was on a case he was chasing other girls and mostly catching them.  But in case you haven’t noticed, I’m trying to throw myself at you pretty hard.  So if you’re not interested in catching me, please don’t let me go splat.”

Jon’s voice rasped in the darkness.  “You’re a teenager.  I don’t date teenagers.  Seven Hells, I didn’t date teenagers when I actually was a teenager.  Now shut up and go to sleep, Sansa, because I’m pretty sure things are going to be even crazier tomorrow.”

 

   ***

The next morning, Jon woke up in a state that made it very clear it was far too long since he'd had company of the non-sleeping persuasion.  The fact that Sansa had snuggled against his back during the night, and her hair smelled lovely might have had something to do with it.  He was just glad that the hand that had wandered underneath his T-shirt and rested on his stomach had stayed above the waist, even if her fingertips did keep occasionally sliding along the grooves of his abdominals.

He had to hand it to the girl; if he'd woken up in a situation like this during his teenage years, he would have spent several minutes sputtering incoherently and blushing, but Sansa just wished him a cheery good morning.

Jon decided that all was fair in mysteries and inappropriate flirtations, and ignored the manners that Mrs Tarly had drilled into him to grab first shot at the ensuite bathroom - and the chance to relieve the tension in his groin while in the shower.

Unlike his foster-sister, Sansa took barely any time at all in the bathroom.  So by the time Jon had thoroughly checked his suitcase and stowed his piece in his shoulder holster - Varys **had** mentioned a murder, after all - he and Sansa ended up leaving his bedroom together.

Sansa smiled at him merrily, “Thanks for last night, Jon, see you at breakfast!”

With a flirty smile, she turned on her heel and headed to the stairs, swinging her hips to make her short skirt swish.

Jon silently groaned, and ran his hand through his curly hair as he tore his gaze away from her legs, only to land on her arse.  That boyfriend of hers must have been an idiot.  If he’d known Sansa in high school, she’d have had to keep him away at gunpoint.  He’d always been a sucker for a dangerous woman, and the fact Sansa hid it so well made it even worse.

Dealing with this sexy little minx was going to drive him bugshit before the weekend was over, he just knew it.  At least Sam hadn’t witnessed anything –

“Jon.  What was **that** about?”

“Fuck my life,” Jon sighed under his breath.  He turned around, and sure enough, Sam was right behind him, with the same sort of look Jon used to get whenever he suggested breaking into a suspect’s house.

“Anything funny – by which I mean, potentially lethal – in your room last night?” he asked.

“Snake in my bed,” Sam replied.  “Good thing I saw it moving before I got in.  I recognised the breed, so I used the heat of the bedside lamp to lull it to sleep, then popped next door and asked Lord Lannister to lend me Bronn in order to help capture it into my spare robe and bundle it into the bathtub.  He was happy to help once they’d dealt with the bomb.”

“Wonder what Miss Septa got?” Jon mused.  “Anyway, Sansa followed me into my room and recognised the smell of gas, and I took the direct route and busted the window.  She decided against dealing with whatever was in her room, so she grabbed her bag and told me I was getting a room-mate for the night.”

Sam bent close, and beckoned Jon closer.  Jon sighed again and bent forward.

“I’m a Maester, Jon, so I can say this with some authority.  If you take sexual advantage of that girl, you're going to burn in a very special level of hell. A level they reserve for child molesters, and people who talk at the theatre.”

“Actually, Sam, she’s trying to take sexual advantage of me,” Jon pointed out.

“Oh for Seven’s sake, Jon, you’re almost thirty and she’s not just a teenager, she’s a **redhead**!” Sam snapped.  “The last time you slept with a redhead, she shot you three times!”

“Fuck that, I’m barely twenty-seven!” Jon snapped back, and stormed off to get some damn breakfast.

 

   ***

Breakfast did not go to plan.  At least not the plans of any of the guests.  (Varys' plan?  Well, that's what the detectives needed to figure out, wasn't it?)

Which was what led Lord Lannister and his trusted leg-man to the kitchen, staring at the body of Pycelle the Butler.

The naked body.

Bronn bent over, reaching for the old man’s bare wrist.  “No pulse, no heartbeat. If his condition doesn't change, this man is dead.”

“Well, you stay here in case it does,” Lannister ordered.  “I’m going to the dining room to find the ladies, and hopefully our errant Maester and P.I. have come to breakfast as well.”

Five minutes later, all the guests were gathered at the opposite end of the kitchen table from the body.

“Alright, let me see if I have this straight,” Bronn said slowly.  “Miss Septa comes into the kitchen to ask about breakfast and finds the Butler dead, sitting at the kitchen table and slumped over.  She checks for a heartbeat, then leaves to find some backup, and Sansa’s just strolled in to the dining room.  They chat for a minute, then both go back to the kitchen.  Then they discover that the Butler’s body is gone, but his clothes are still there – not folded up on the table or anything, but sitting up and inside each other like the body’s dissolved and left the clothes behind.  They come out to find us and ask if we’ve seen anything.  So me and Lannister leave them in the dining room and come in, and find the dead Butler’s come back, but now his clothes are gone.  I stay here and Lannister finds the rest of you.  So now all six of us are here in the kitchen, staring a wrinkly old naked corpse.  Have I got that right?”

“Seems accurate enough,” Maester Samwell offered.  “Is it just me, or is anyone else really glad that he’s still sitting at the table?  My corpses are occasionally elderly, but they always come clothed.”

“Not just you,” Lord Lannister assured him.  “If I must deal with a naked corpse, I prefer them much younger and far more attractive.  On the other hand, it’s such a waste of young and attractive women.”

“Does anyone else feel like we’ve gone from a Hammer Horror movie to a Monty Python sketch?” asked Sansa.

Jon shrugged.  “Well, he’s definitely an ex-butler now.”

 

 ***

While Lord Lannister took over cooking breakfast (on the grounds that it was the only way he'd get an acceptable meal), Miss Septa and Maester Samwell went looking for the maid.  Finding a perfectly detailed animatronic mannequin of the maid packed in a suitcase was... disconcerting, to say the least.

Unfortunately, the body of the butler disappeared again from the cold storage, so no one could test whether it was a perfectly detailed animatronic mannequin that wasn't packed in a suitcase.

 

 ***

By the time night fell, every detective had a theory.

As night fell, the detectives entered the library one by one to confront the man behind the desk - who was Pycelle, or Varys posing as Pycelle, or Pycelle posing as Varys posing as Pycelle, and kept ripping off award-winning special effects masks to prove it.  Or was it Varys' long-missing daughter Jeyne posing as her father posing as Pycelle?

In the end, Bronn got bored, and hit whoever was sitting at the desk over the head.  Once they were unconscious, he split the bundle of cash six ways and handed them out.

Then everyone picked up the bags they'd packed and left in the entry hall, and headed for their cars.

 

 ***

"Jon, wait!"

He really shouldn't.  He should get into his car and drive like he and Sam were running from the Gold Cloak Gang again.

But her voice wound around him like a net.

So Jon stopped next to his car, and turned around to see Sansa hurrying towards him.

When she stopped in front of him, she looked at him like he was on a poster she'd hung up on her bedroom wall.  One she kissed to blot her lipstick.

"We're both based in White Harbour, you know that, right?"

Jon shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his trench coat, and nodded.

"How about dinner next week?  If nothing else, maybe if we throw some ideas back and forth we might be able to work out who that actually was."

Sansa smiled brightly, and the bottom dropped out of his stomach.

Jon sighed, “I told you, Sansa.  I don’t date teenagers.”

Then her smile slanted, and Jon bit his lip and wished he’d worn looser pants.

“Funny thing, Jon,” she purred.  “I turn twenty next month.”

It only took Jon a matter of heartbeats to decide.

“Come and ask me again in two months.”

He hastily climbed in his car and fired it up.

“Wait!” Sansa asked in alarm.  “Do you mean your office or your place?  What’s your address?”

Jon grinned up at her.  “You’re a detective, aren’t you?  Find out.”

 

  ***

 

As Snow drove past them, leaving a visibly agitated Sansa Stark behind, Bronn turned towards the back seat of the Town car.

“Something’s been bothering me,” he asked his employer.  “What with the fake bodies and the masks and everything.  **Was** there a murder, or **wasn’t** there?”

Tyrion harrumphed.  “Yes.  A perfectly good weekend was killed stone cold dead.  Drive, please.”

 

**SHAMUS MORGULIS**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SHOUT-OUTS
> 
> * The man in the sanctuary: Miss Septa's first case is based on Agatha Christie's short story 'Sanctuary'; featuring Miss Marple, the ultimate example of Little Old Lady Investigates.
> 
> * the story about the parrot and the goat: look up the show _Veronica Mars_. You want episode 1x17 'Betty and Veronica'.
> 
> * Saint Myrcella Mead: Miss Marple comes from the village St Mary Mead; I figured Cersei's just crazy enough to get the Faith of the Seven to declare poor Myrcella a saint.
> 
> * The Tarly Boys: play on The Hardy Boys, classic Teen Detectives by the Stratmeyer Syndicate, under the name Franklin W Dixon. 
> 
> * "Right, then." : one of the catchphrases of the title character of the tv show _Foyle's War_
> 
> * "ever since the Spider Sapphire case": The Stratmeyer Syndicate also created Nancy Drew, the original Girl Teen Detective. _The Spider Sapphire Mystery_ was one of the original run of Nancy Drew mysteries, published in 1968. There were no motel fires involved in the actual book, though.
> 
> * the farting leather couch in the office: stolen from Cormoran Strike, as created by JK Rowling, writing as Robert Galbraith. The first three books have been adapted to television under the title _Strike_ ; book four is coming out in September 2018!! *dances celebratory jig* 
> 
> * Sansa's boyfriend: Nancy Drew had two close friends/sidekicks and a devoted boyfriend, Ned Nickerson, who somehow never seemed to mind that Nancy was always off chasing criminals instead of actually going out with him. Ever since the advent of the internet (and probably before), fans have speculated as to why: theories range from him just being long-suffering, to getting some elsewhere during Nancy's frequent absences, to even being a closeted gay. (Not to mention that a large section of the fandom, including some of the ghost writers, have shipped her with Frank Hardy for just as long) Given the alliteration, Harry Hardyng seemed to be the best substitute... and we all know **his** proclivities, don't we? 
> 
> * 'a very special level of hell': c'mon, who doesn't recognise possibly the most famous quote from _Firefly_?
> 
> * Several of Tyrion and Bronn's exchanges are quotes from the original movie, mostly from Charlie Chan parody Sidney Wang and his adopted son Willie.


End file.
